THE Philippine Sports Commission presented its two major programs for the elite and grassroots during a consultative meeting with the Philippine Olympic Committee and the national sports associations on Thursday at the PICC.
PSC chairman Noli Eala said the two projects are dubbed as the Project: Gintong Laban for the elite and the Duyan ng Magiting for the grassroots.
PSC lays Gintong Laban groundwork
“Project: Gintong Laban is our golden fight. High performance elite program for elite athletes,” said Eala during a press conference. “And in this program, we are going to tweak Project Gintong Alay where we take care of elite athletes and prepare them for the highest level of competition by raising enough funds for these athletes and at the same time, building infrastructure, giving them equipment, support, and competent medical assessment, sports sciences to be part of all the athletes.”
Eala explained that unlike the Gintong Alay where a godfather system was in place on different sports during the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the funds collected in the Gintong Laban project will be placed on the entire program with the best athletes serving as the beneficiary.
“Nung araw kasi, godfather system. There were godfathers assigned to a sport. This time around, it’s very difficult to do that because maraming NSA, maraming sports. We are not necessarily looking at one godfather per sport. We are asking private sector to help the program of Project Gintong Laban,” Eala said.
Eala said POC officials led by president Abraham Tolentino and representatives from 68 out of the 74 NSAs attended the meeting to strengthen the partnership of the sports bodies.
Eala also urged the POC and the NSAs to be responsible for the funds that are given to them for their programs, competition, and training.
“We will respect their autonomy but let’s describe it as responsible autonomy wherein they are not going to be interfered with in terms of programs and in terms of their ability to run their own NSAs. But at the same time, they have duties to respect the fact that public funds are being used for sports programs. And thus, we have to be responsible for the funds that are entrusted to them,” said Eala.
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